I have recently been dabbling in HO brass engines and have noticed that the very early United HO brass engines from the early 1960;s. These are the early engines which came in smaller boxes and were wrapped in paper and not foam, and they appear to come in two degrees of finish…
One style of United Engine comes in the blue box and is wrapped in paper. These engines do not come with the brakes for the drive engines.
The other style United also comes in the blue box with the paper wrapping, the box is the United box but also has the words “super detailed”,
These engines have significantly more piping and boiler detail as well as brakes for the drivers and also a plate hiding the electric motor, a blackhead of minimum finish.
Does anyone know if the “super detailed” engines are acutally early Teneshoda or Crown model equivalents.
IIRC, PFM imported models made by United, Tenshodo, and Fuji? The United models got more detailed through the years. I had some late 60’s production and all of mine had foam inserts in the blue box with plastic wrappers around the model. Early Tenshodo models were similar, but also came in ‘screwdriver assembly’ versions for about $5 less. Much of the early Tenshodo production was GN prototype.
‘Crown’ production was far more detailed models by any of the above builders. PFM usually reserved that for 4-8-4 Northern types, but others were imported in the ‘Crown’ series. Usually there was some sort of ‘Crown’ labeling in the box and the models were serial numbered. I had a ‘Crown’ CB&Q O-5 Northern and it had brake rigging as well as the brake shoes, and sprung drivers.
All of my ‘brass’ is now gone, except for a OMI SDL39. At one point I had about 20 brass engines I picked up in the late 60’s/early 70’s. I sold most of them in the early 80’s when the prices maxed out. One of the few investments I bought low and sold high on! The quality of the ‘plastic brass’(Spectrum/BLI/P2K) is so good, that most of my steam is DCC/Sound equipped. Now, if MTH or BLI would do an HO Milw S-3 Northern(#261) to run with my 2 ‘excursion’ cars!
I have an early ATSF 2-8-0 and it came in the blue United box marked “super detailed”, this is the small box with the paper wrapping - not foam.
One of the follows at the model railroad club here has a later model United ATSF 2-8-0 and it is in the larger box with the foam insert.
My model has more boiler detail, piping, valves, and tags and also has the brake shoes for the drivers in place. The other locomotive is the same ATSF model, has less detail and does not come with the brakes in place for the drivers.
Both models have the open frame motors, mine has a shield around it, much like a backhead but less detail. The other engine has no shield around the motor.
I am thinking that the "super detailed: model is either the predecessor of the United Crown or an early Teneshoda.
I checked a few old United and PFM catalogues but can not fine any information of the early “super detailed” models.
I would not have much brass if I was not trying to model Great Northern steam era as well as the CPR and CNR railroads which have very little correct plastic locomotives now or earlier, just brass for the main part.
Your post got me thinking, so I retrieved my United L-131 from storage, the box is long gone, except for a couple of replacement gear boxes and a can motor, nothing else has been touched, I then compared the detail against a equally venerable United UP 0-6-0 switcher in orginal form.
The detail is quite good on both, stand alone piping and extensive use of castings, the air pump and injector castings on the 131 are not up to par with todays castings, other then that, in my humble opinion it has stood the test of time.
Agree with you about those United L-131’s (I’ve got two, both operating). Though the detail might not be as good as current brass, those babies can pull anything you want to put behind them. Heck, they’ll not only pull the paint off the walls, they’ll pull the walls right out of the room, LOL!
Good lokies, and from the 3-foot distance, the lack of ‘fine’ detail doesn’t bother me at all.
For much of PFM’s (Pacific Fast Mail) early history, they carried two lines: United and Tenshodo. They also had, in addition, what they referred to as “limited production” models. In the early '60’s, none of their regular line had brake rigging and some of the detailing was crude or absent. Over the years, later runs had improved detailing. Keep in mind that most of these models had several runs (19 for the Santa Fe 2-8-0, 17 for the GN S-1 4-8-4). The limited production items typically had more detail; and those, too, would have likely had improvements IF there was more than one run. The models in the latter group (limited production) were rarely, if ever, of the same prototypes as the regular line.
So, detailing was always improved over time, not diminished.
You can look for your models to see if they’re in the regular or the limited production lines.
Without more info, I can’t be sure; but I think the phrase “super detailed” is most likely reflecting that that particular run has had some improvements over the last one. If the run after that, though, is even better, you’ve kind of run out of superlatives unless your get into “super super detailing” and so on.
I had my brute remotored in the mid 80’s. After 25+ years in storage, I recently cleaned and relubed those gear boxes,cleaned all electrical contact points, guess what, she purrs like a kitten on Red Bull, next stop the stripping tank to remove that gawd-awful paint job, then a few laps to shake off any remaining dust bunnies!
The PFM United built models were well detailed but lacked brake shoes on the drivers and cab interiors in the early 1960’s era. Some of the Crown models had a backhead on the boiler inside the cab, but none had much detail in the interior of the cab. A few Crowns such as the NYC 4-6-4 by Sakura in 1964 and the Toby UP 4-8-4 in 1964 had brake shoes. The early sixties was the era when more detail begin to be added. These were made of brass and and could cause shorts. My early PFM Crowns ran better than the United models in general. Most of the early PFM models had two boxes and were wrapped in corrugated tyep bendable type cardboard. It is hard to evaluate the details directly between two models since they are different locomotives and steam locomotives have various details and refinements. The early Crowns normally had brass coined drivers with a better detail than the KTM driver centers. The Toby and Fuji models had green
Very nice looking L131 but you have to use the water brakes down Hill since it has no shoes??? Right?? LOL! I had one of the later runs (1981) with cab detail and brake shoes and it was very nice.
The old United models as you have said are some of the best for layouts and all of my old ones still run well. It helps if they have a replacement motor since the older open frame motors use a lot of current.
I was going to remotor mine and get rid of that odd exposed reduction gear, but instead I simply replaced the magnet in the motor with those new Rare Earth magnets just out of curiosity. Holy Cow, talk about a DIFFERENCE! No coffee-grinder noise and they’ll both crawl like Banana slugs, LOL! Those babies are one HUNK of locomotive! I think I’ll keep them as is, since I’m still DC. The new magnets reduced the amperage by at least half, it seems.
I was surprised to read that the original United 2-8-8-2’s (advertised as L-125’s) had a minimum radius of 20". And that with prototypical articulation–amazing. I’ve got 34" minimum, so I’ve never run my L’s on anything smaller, but even at that, the boiler hang is something else–at times they looks a if they’re ready for a 3-point landing, LOL! But they’re sure great locos, IMO.
Yup, thank God for those water brakes, LOL! Especially on my 2.4% eastbound drop off of the summit. Evidently those water brakes sure kept runaways from happening. I read about one Missabe 2-8-8-4 ‘loaner’ getting away coming down the Moffat line during WWII and heading off into the hinterlands around the Big 10 curves. No water brakes. Evidently Rio Grande was one of the very few American railroads to use them.
